7) In post-conflict settings, the United States should utilize a flexible, multilateral model backed up by an energetic and robust American policy and program.

Many pundits create a false dichotomy between a go-it-alone, unilateral U.S. policy and a UN-driven, multilateral approach. In fact, neither variant in the extreme is ever truly employed. The question then becomes how to achieve our strategic objective by simultaneously taking advantage of American power and mobilizing maximum contributions from other players.

The approach we have taken in Afghanistan has worked well. We have derived a great advantage from giving the UN the central role for organizing the international effort to help Afghanistan. In this way, Afghans feel that the world has come to help their country, and they are not put in a position where they feel overwhelmed by American power, as almost any small nation in their position would if every important issue were channeled exclusively into bilateral interaction with the United States. Moreover, the UN lead allows countries that would not participate in a U.S.-led structure to bring their resources and other contributions to bear. Finally, we have been fortunate to have two exceptional UN special representatives, Lakhdar Brahimi and Jean Arnault, with whom we continually coordinate and consult.

However, even in this structure there is no substitute for U.S. power and resources. These must be utilized to guarantee the achievement of every objective essential to the success of the overall mission. We have coaxed other countries to take a greater role and pressed other donors for larger contributions in never-ending rounds of international tin-cupping. However, there are certain outcomes--a strong national army, an effective police force and others--that the United States must at the end of the day be willing to deliver with its own efforts if necessary. In settings like Afghanistan, this is the burden of being the world's only superpower.

8) If neighboring countries can help or harm our effort, the United States should engage them and shape their conduct to the extent possible, even if we have deep differences with those countries.

Our objective in Afghanistan is to create a political and geopolitical beachhead--a moderate and democratic state in a turbulent and unstable region. To succeed requires us to pursue a regional strategy that persuades and induces neighboring states to stand down from their policies of the past two decades. During this period, they organized and armed clients to fight for control over Afghanistan, seeking to dominate the country's strategic position. None ultimately succeeded in its imperial designs, but the toll for the Afghan people was enormous: more than a million dead and more than five million refugees forced to flee. Though the policies of neighboring states continue to pose challenges, the lesson is that this key aspect of solving the puzzle of Afghanistan's stability cannot be slighted or ignored.

First, we have to help the leaders of regional powers shift away from a zero-sum mindset of geopolitical rivalry and empire. It took two world wars to cure major west European powers of the pursuit of grand designs for regional or imperial conquest. In the Greater Middle East, many powers focus principally on gaining advantage over their rivals, rather than on finding solutions that serve the interests of all key players. They place too much value on the ephemeral gains to be won through geopolitical competition rather than on the enduring value of developing the human and economic capital of their own societies and seeking the benefits of trade and economic cooperation. We need to help this important region get through this dangerous phase of its development as quickly as possible.

Regarding our efforts in Afghanistan, this means that we must bring each regional power to the point where its leaders accept the fact that their interests are better served by a stable, independent and prosperous Afghanistan, an outcome that opens the way to a wider economic transformation of the region. They also must come to see that the worst outcome is a return to proxy competition, a game that exacts an enormous cost in blood and treasure, and could result in a rival coming to dominate Afghanistan and using it as a base of operations to threaten its competitors. Moreover, all the major powers would benefit from the restoration of the historic Afghan land bridge connecting the markets of Central Asia, South Asia and southwest Asia--a region with a collective and growing GDP of $4 trillion. There is a strong case to be made that each country would benefit more from the prosperity derived from trade than from seeking to dominate its neighbors.

Second, to effect this shift in the calculations of regional powers, we need to persuade their leaders that the United States is unalterably committed to success in Afghanistan. If the leaders of these countries are uncertain about the strength of our commitment to stay the course, they are likely to hedge against the possibility that we will pull out. In Afghanistan, this means that they will maintain relations with clients or factions that would give them an instrument for violent proxy competition after an American disengagement. Their support for these groups can hamper our effort to enable the Afghans to stabilize and rebuild their country. The challenge is finding ways to effectively signal our commitment, through both words and deeds, to leaders who are convinced of our short attention span.

Third, we must motivate or incentivize the leaders of regional powers to desist from destabilizing policies. Regarding Afghanistan, this has meant calling neighboring powers to account for their actions. It is best if private interventions achieve the desired effect, but public statements may sometimes be necessary. The United States should also be willing to develop ties with interest groups, particularly in the business sector, that might pressure national leaders to reduce instability in order to stimulate greater trade. Trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan has increased to $1 billion--dwarfing the level achieved during the Taliban regime--and industries and businesses throughout Pakistan are primary beneficiaries. The challenge of shaping the conduct of neighbors continues, and it requires our engagement and attention.

9) A closely integrated civil-military structure and set of policies and programs are the best way to achieve success.

The case of Afghanistan has also shown that close, civil-military cooperation results in major benefits. In the recent presidential election, an extraordinary degree of civil-military integration was achieved, an effort led by the U.S. mission but supported by coalition planning and security forces. For example, coalition forces played a vital role even in providing security for movements of ballots--and sometimes moved the ballots themselves.

As part of a major initiative to accelerate progress in June 2003, the United States adopted an integrated civil-military action plan. The offices of the chief of mission and the commanding general of the Combined Forces Command for Afghanistan were co-located in the U.S. embassy in Kabul. The U.S. mission undertook a number of organizational innovations to enable its programs, including the creation of the Afghanistan Reconstruction Group, composed of functional experts in key reconstruction areas, and the Embassy Interagency Planning Group, a military-staffed cell that tracks progress against clear metrics. In the field, military-led Provincial Reconstruction Teams contained embedded personnel from the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other civilian agencies. At the headquarters level, a special coordination process to integrate and synchronize civilian and military programs has been put in place. These innovations are yielding good returns.

All who have been involved in Afghanistan policy in this period have been impressed by what this cooperation has achieved. The military mission--defeating terrorists and insurgents--has been supported by the political process to build the legitimacy of the Afghan government and civilian-led programs such as police training. Efforts of civilian agencies--helping Afghans complete their democratic transition and reconstructing the economy, among others--have been supported by coalition military operations and progress toward establishing a national army. This experience should be a model for such efforts going forward, both in Afghanistan and other post-conflict situations.

10) Success requires the U.S. government to provide adequate resources and to find more efficient ways to operate.

In 2002, all major players in Afghanistan--the UN, the United States and even the Afghan leadership--fundamentally underestimated the resource requirements for rebuilding the country. The United States, as well as other donors, adjusted their programs upward in 2003 and 2004, with more than $4.5 billion pledged for fiscal year 2004 at the Berlin donors conference in February 2003. Looking forward, it will take annual assistance at that level or higher for five to seven years to achieve our goals. This is why the administration has requested from Congress more than $5 billion in security and economic assistance for the current fiscal year.

Other adjustments are also needed. The United States and other countries that engage in post-conflict reconstruction need to streamline their internal operations. We have to be able to hit the ground running because in the aftermath of war a golden opportunity exists to lay the foundation for new institutions before negative trends, such as the rise of organized crime, begin to take hold. In Afghanistan, for example, we are in a race between the building of the legal economy and the rise of the illegal drug economy. Also, as Afghans complete their democratic transition, the clock will start running on whether the new political order can deliver results in terms of quality of life of the people. To beat the clock, we must work as quickly as possible to set the conditions needed for private-sector growth, such as making electricity and capital available nationwide and establishing greater rule of law. We must also learn to move forward quickly on the twin tracks of reconstruction, providing immediate results and building up local capacity for the long term. If our often cumbersome contracting and other bureaucratic processes are too slow, we will find that the clock will run out, the people will become disillusioned and the Afghan democratic experiment could be imperiled.